NAS Configuration Time Machine, configuration notes on D-Link DNS-320

Today, I'm going to hand over the time machine backup to the NAS, which was placed on an external hard drive, albeit faster than the NAS, but it's a bit cumbersome to plug in and pull out. And the NAS also has the function of real-time online and timed shutdown. With time machine, maximum data backup can be achieved.

In fact, this configuration note is one side of the writing, I do not know what will be stepping on the Thunder, so the configuration process is not necessarily the most concise, just to bring some ideas to everyone. Solve some practical problems.

No more nonsense, just a little bit about the preparation work. DNS-320 's entry-level NAS (dual-disc), updated with the latest firmware, pulled one of the disks out and replaced it with my original backup disk. Start the NAS. You can see that the corresponding indicator light has changed from blue to orange.

Login management interface. Format the new hard drive for the EXT4 format. When the NAS itself reboots, the LEDs turn back to blue, indicating that the newly inserted hard drive is ready to use.

The following configuration DNS-320 is started:

We need to choose AFP on the share, because neither SMB, CIFS, or NFS protocol seems to be supported by Apple's time machine.

Let's create the share and create a directory named "Timemachinebackups" below the new hard drive (VOLUME1) to differentiate the other data on the hard drive (assuming you want to put something else on the hard drive).

Figure 1 Creating a share with this directory

When creating the share, the user rights are the default, I will create the corresponding user, then back to adjust.

When choosing a sharing agreement, we only need to keep the AFP. Others are protocols that are not used. The options that can be removed are removed.

Figure 2 Choosing a sharing protocol

The user is then created, which is dedicated to time machine backup data.

This step is primarily for security reasons, assuming that the NAS is used by more than one person, you can also skip this step and open the "timemachinebackups" permission to your users.

We created a user named "TimeMachine" whose permission is "just agree to read and write timemachinebackups sharing".

Figure 3 Setting user permissions just agree to read and write "Timemachinebackups" share

At the same time, during the creation of the user, we were able to do disk quota management, but it was not clear that it was compatible with the Times machine, so let's not do this here, no matter what the limit.

Figure 4 Disk quotas are not enabled first

Once again, we are changing the shared properties of the "Timemachinebackups", which is mainly to adjust the access rights of other users.

Figure 5 Adjusting the shared properties of "Timemachinebackups"

Come to the User Rights control page and set all other users as forbidden.

Figure 6 Setting other user rights to deny

At last. We need to set the "AFP Service" to "Enable" in "Application Management".

Figure 7 enabling the AFP function

At this point, the configuration work on the DNS-320 is complete. The following continues with the configuration in MacOS.

Finder menu. Go to, connect to server ...

Then enter the IP address of the NAS (I like the IP of the network device fixed down, because the author network of equipment from a number of providers. Their support for machine names is not always very good.

Figure 8 Connecting the AFP shared server

After entering Usernamepassword, we are able to access the "timemachinebackups" share.

Then, in the settings of Time machine, select "Timemachinebackups" to share as a backup disk.

Figure 9 Selecting a network share as a backup disk

The "Encrypt backup" option is recommended. The details why everyone look at the Mac help is clear.

Figure Mac Help documentation for encrypted backups

Then. Time Machine will start to back up data on its own initiative.

Figure 11 When Setup is complete, time machine will proactively start the backup

To this. The setting for time machine backup using D-Link DNS-320 as a NAS is all over.

NAS Configuration Time Machine, configuration notes on D-Link DNS-320